Pet peeve time: Most of the time, it's not ki! Crusaders (the moves Skadi uses) channel divine energy through devotion and zeal (which is pretty much what Skadi does already), while Warblades use sheer athleticism and training. The only maneuvers that specifically mention ki are some of the swordsage-exclusive ones (some Desert Wind and Shadow Hand stuff).

Thus every time you mention "Skadi" and "ki" in the same sentence, I get a tic.

*shrug* I really like it as ki, myself, but if it really bothers you we can look at a different system.

I also had a thought about compensating somewhat for the loss of 1d6 which would've otherwise accrued from the additional level up. Basically a rogue gets +1d6 sneak attack, +1 to trap sense, and +1 to Fort and Will. BAB doesn't go up. First level swordsage gets +2 to Reflex and Will, and no rise to BAB. I don't think we can replace Trap Sense or find an extra +1 to Fort somewhere, but aside from the stances and maneuvers one gains, there's also Discipline Focus, which functions basically as Weapon Focus for any of the weapons a given school is associated with. Corrath uses rapier, shortsword, and kukri, which are covered by Diamond Mind, Shadow Hand, and Tiger Claw schools respectively.

This is where the feat known as Craven comes in. From Champions of Ruin, p.17. Basically, you take a -2 penalty to all saves against fear -- buuuut, when making a sneak attack, you do an extra point of damage per character level.

So if Corrath trades out Weapon Focus for Craven, she gets -1 to attack rolls with her kukri (and daggers and short swords), but retains her accuracy with her rapier. Additionally, her sneak attack -- not sure if Telling Blow synergises with it or not -- gets an additional 9 points of damage per sneak attack, which compensates for losing the 1d6 from not taking Rogue 9. And Craven's bonuses get better as you go up in levels.

The main drawback being, of course, that her saves against fear are nerfed by 2. Still, that's why you've got brother Elvis singing and (when you're caught without a song) the Aura of Courage from Skadi to stiffen your resolve.

Thus, to sum up Craven's effect when it's traded for Weapon Focus:
-1 to attack rolls with daggers, short swords, and kukris
No change to attack accuracy with rapiers
-2 to saves on fear
+9 and rising to sneak attack damage. (I think really Craven should synergise with Telling Blow since the feat description says "Your sneak attacks do more damage than normal" and Telling Blow allows you to apply sneak attack damage to your critical hits.)

Starting a bardic music effect is a standard action. Some bardic music abilities require concentration, which means the bard must take a standard action each round to maintain the ability. Even while using bardic music that doesn?t require concentration, a bard cannot cast spells, activate magic items by spell completion (such as scrolls), spell trigger (such as wands), or command word. Just as for casting a spell with a verbal component, a deaf bard has a 20% chance to fail when attempting to use bardic music. If he fails, the attempt still counts against his daily limit.

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Some bardic abilities require concentration, such as fascinate and inspire concentration. Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness don't, they just require you to keep singing. Normally you couldn't cast spells or use certain items while singing, but that's what Melodic Casting is for. So in theory, you don't even need to use your harmonizing rapier and can maintain Inspire Courage for as long as you want. Snowflake War Dance only requires a free action to activate, and doesn't interfere with singing, so you can fire up both in round 1 if you want and then full attack while maintaining the song.

Unfortunately, this means you got hosed on the Harmonizing enhancement, since you can't use the harmonizing enhancement to maintain a bard song while you work on a second one. I can't really think of a use for it, aside from maybe holding on to a fascinate or inspire competence while you do something that requires a standard action (and inspire competence isn't that good to begin with. Its only redeeming feature is that you need it for Song of the Heart, which is awesome).

Is Tide of Flames the only heavily rules-based game around here? I'm thinking about launching another. Probably D&D 4e (if that doesn't conflict with the boards one-game-per-franchise policy) or Eclipse Phase, maybe something else. D&D 4e not just because I like the system but because I'm familiar with it having run a game of it the past couple summers; Eclipse Phase because I'd also like to branch out and it's all open source and sharing is allowed, even though I'm not as comfortable with it.

Would there be interest in another rules-based game around here? In any case I'd like to keep it small, and I'd be counting on not all of our starters knowing the rules - I'd plan on easing new players into whichever system I decide to run with.

I believe ToF is the only one currently, yes. We had a few that were sekritly using dice in the background (that is, the GM was rolling dice without telling anyone) but I think they've all concluded by now.

Big P.S., which I intended to put up in my previous post: not trying to bind the current moderating team, but Hammer and I ditched the "one game per franchise" rule some years ago. Thus it's pretty much anything goes these days.

Big P.S., which I intended to put up in my previous post: not trying to bind the current moderating team, but Hammer and I ditched the "one game per franchise" rule some years ago. Thus it's pretty much anything goes these days.

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^ This.

And no worries on the binding front; in fact I recall being one of those arguing in favour of ditching that rule back in the day.

All right, I'm moving ahead with this and currently working on a 4e D&D-based game. Any suggestions/ideas on how to work on things like building characters for a system tied to sourcebooks? I'd be available to help people work on this via chat or PM when the time comes. But if anyone has any other ideas I'd much appreciate it. As far as I know there aren't any online character generators for this sort of thing.

Additionally, there are those of us who *cough cough* have *cough* a certain *cough* form of access to 4e books. Not that I'm at all versed with 4e personally, and if the experience with 3.5 is anything to go by, there'll be handbooks out there for effective character builds.

Oh, I'm well aware of these other methods. Perhaps that's also something else I could work out in chats with individual players.

I'll be taking a look through the first few pages of Tide of Flames over the next week or so with a particular eye on the mechanics you've used to make a d20 system operable online. ETA on actually starting is still something like a month out. I'm taking it easy for now.

I'd also recommend lurking the Giant In the Playground forums. There's any number of 4e games that run on PbP over there, too. In practice it's not that much different from how we do things here. About the only difference is that GITP's forums have dice rollers inbuilt, while we have to use Invisible Castle.

I believe they keep a record based on the name you choose to use in the roller. Not to mention people generally won't cheat their rolls anyway. You can always take away an individual player's right to roll if you suspect foul play, after all.